107 to 70: My notes on weight loss.

This post documents and attempts to quantify my observations over the last 16 months, during which, I lost 36.4 Kg (from 107.2 to 70.8) in…

107 to 70: My notes on weight loss.

BMI (weight/ (1.82 * 1.82)) and Weight progression from 2019 August to 2020 November

This post documents and attempts to quantify my observations over the last 16 months, during which, I lost 36.4 Kg (from 107.2 to 70.8) in body weight.

107 to 97 - OMAD and fits of binge eating:

From 2019 August to 2020 March, I followed One meal a day on and off. During this period, I didn’t take weight loss seriously and was happy with any progress. On most weekdays I was able to adhere to OMAD, mostly due to my weight-conscious co-workers. Being an avid Ent, weekends were a different story, full of binge eating sessions and munchies.

I lost ~10 Kg during this period averaging ~1.4Kg per month with an average caloric deficit of ~400 per day.

During this period, I didn’t have any visible changes and my dress sizes didn’t change.

97 to 79 -Adapting to and surviving ADF:

When the lockdown started in March, I realised that I had the perfect opportunity to experiment with Alternate Day Fasting. This meant, skipping food for a day and eating protein-rich food amounting to~1500 calories the next day.

Although the theory is simple, being an avid Ent meant that I had to get the munchies and sweet tooth under control. Surprisingly, adapting to this took only 7–10 days of strict self-control, after which It became a routine.

During this period (2020 Mar to 2020 Jul), I was able to maintain a deficit of ~2000 calories on fasting days and ~800 calories on non-fasting days. This resulted in a ~19 kg weight loss over this period with an average of ~0.17 kg per day.

To stop this from getting this too mundane, I had random cheat days where I used up my 1500 calorie “allowance” on fast food/ snacks instead of protein-rich food.

I tracked my body fat, muscle mass changes over this period using a “smart” scale, some crude manual measurements, and didn’t observe any bad weight loss (i.e: losing a lot of muscle mass and very less fat).

I had very visible changes during this period, that followed the “first in last out” rule. i.e: The order of fat loss was the face, neck followed by legs, hands followed by belly, chest.

Notably, during this period my walking speed improved from ~10 minutes a km to ~9 minutes a km and my clothing sizes went down (pants 38/XXL to 36/XL, shirts 46/XXL to 42/L).

79 to 70 — Slowing down:

Once I hit 80, I stopped ADF and decided to slow down. i.e: averaging ~1000–1200 calories a day. Although there were a few days where I succumbed to my indulgences during this period, I was able to overcome them easily.

During this period (2020 Jul to 2020 Nov), I lost ~10 kg averaging ~2.5kg per month.

My walking speed, shirt size remained the same during this period and pant size went down from 36/XL to 34/L.

Some random observations:

  1. Weight loss is easy. Counting calories is the best and only approach.
  2. Gamifying the calorie allotment helped in sticking to limits.
  3. OTG grilled chicken is the best. (low in calories, easy to cook, high protein content)
  4. Despite what many people report, I didn’t notice any major improvements in my day to day life because of weight loss.
  5. Despite my initial fears, during ADF I never felt weak or fainted.

6. Being able to eyeball the calorie, fat content in a dish helped a lot.